


then a counter truth

by aosc



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: M/M, Power Dynamics, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:45:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7924660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Floyd wants the dexterity, and the density, of knowing there is something lethal to have, to hold. Not the search, the roam, of Flag's gaze on the contours of his neck, his shoulders. The link of the chains and cuffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	then a counter truth

**Author's Note:**

> suicide squad - didn't really get me to believe any of these dudes actually, realistically, could be self sacrificial bffs when it ended. so. a bit of powerplay. man. it's a thing that just sort of happened.

* * *

 

Floyd looks up. He hasn't ran far, and, moreover, the mindlessness of it all hadn't managed to pick up on the muscle activity enough to raise his breathing. He turns, slowly. Squints, through the rain and the mellow daylight, up at Flag, who is inching forward; creeping, hand on his service weapon, forward, towards a wild animal.

 

"This bumpin' you up to Jailer of the Week; not shootin' me all up?" Floyd asks. He straightens, somewhat.

 

Flag raises a perfunctory eyebrow. Floyd can calculate, from far, through the coarse wind and wet streets, the density of the vehicles jetting up the far subsidiary to 47th Avenue. Heavy plated trucks, sleek viper GAU-19's on the roof.

 

Flag rattles the chains at his feet with the tip of his right boot. Steel infused cap toe, inch thick leather hems, rubber sole whining on the wet concrete.

 

"Two can play a game, Lawton," Flag says, "And I don't put up with your _shit_. That's the difference between me and the dude they want to put on you. I know - man, I know you ain't stupid like this."

 

This isn't a standoff. He's been in those. Younger days, scrappier days. There'd been standoffs. And squaring Flag up here, thicker shoulders beneath the poorly camouflaged army jacket, army green, army stitched, army issued - a buzz cut and a frown taller. It ain't about the fact that he could take Flag; he could. Just.

 

He hasn't got a strip of armory on his person, but there's still a comfort in the movement, like clockwork - stretching for his hip, his wrist - the back of his pants, in the worst of dire situations. Floyd sighs, and he counts to ten, using the soothing effect of a memory of Zoe's clipped, childish voice. She's four and three quarters, about to turn five, big girl now, and she's chewing down on the _t_ 's and stretching her _f_ 's, childishly, adoringly -

 

He drops his hands. Allows them to gather blood and weight at his sides. Flag slowly steps off. Backs up. He puts one finger to right the Bluetooth shell at his ear. "Suspend movement. Stand down. I repeat - stand down."

 

Floyd can barely pick up the static click of the comm being interfered, and Flag's man in the truck speak, clipped, across the line, "Copy that, Sir. Standing down, Sir."

 

Flag lowers his gloveless fingers from the shell, wet now from the drip of rain. There's a terse frown breaking in his brow that suggests he's expecting deliverance and hymns sung for his grace. Floyd grits a back tooth against another, and waits it out. This is not a standoff. Rick fucking Flag doesn't make him stand the fuck off with revolvers twirling his thumbs, matiné fucking made.

 

"This isn't about me," Floyd says.

 

"You're fuckin' right it's not," Flag snaps. "And I was about to let my boys put four rounds of fifty cal through your chest 'cause of _not_ you. So pull it _together_ , man."

 

Floyd lets him in, personal space discarded like a wet rag on the street, to twist the chains, wet and heavy from where Flag'd picked them up, lace them through his cuffs, linking wrists to ankles to waist. They await their ride - another of the SWAT issued Humvees, back end opened up and chalked out to hollow a trap door and some steel benches. Flag motions for Floyd, first.

 

Flag searches him, wildly, temporarily suspending on the clock-asshole attitude #54 on the stairs, eyes raking all over him. Floyd's not a physical kind of guy, so this - this sits on him heavy. They sit opposing each other. Flag never wants any of his command in the back. They remain alone.

 

The car barely rattles, so thick it's barely noticeable, creeping up along the streets, turning slowly on corners, their heavy escort of five vehicles.

 

"I'll make you a deal, Lawton," Flag says. It's sudden, punching through the terse air.

 

Floyd chuckles, an ugly, drawn out noise. "Uh huh. That right, errand boy?"

 

"Yeah, that's right. Something you'd like to add?"

 

"Yeah, I mean - sure, man. 'Cause the deals I've made with you so far have been so fuckin' great. Done me a great _deal_ good. Can't wait for the new punchline."

 

Flag's jaw is working, teeth kneading beneath the skin. "Yeah? Well, what you gonna do otherwise?" He spreads his knees. Grounds the soles of his feet in the plated steel. "Here's your situation: I don't get paid enough to listen to your opinions - I don't get paid enough to take your damn case in the first place. But I do, and I did. And right now, I'm about to do you a goddamn favor. If I were the criminal locked down on life twice over, about to get thrown into the fuckin' ground, I'd listen to me."

 

Floyd closes his eyes, briefly - never shuttering more than for the pass of a second, and leans into the rattling back. He meets Flag's eyes. Flag waits. "You were saying, Colonel?"

 

"Getting somewhere." Flag's got long fingers, lacing, unlacing, rested on the balls of his knees. Floyd waits. "We - you and me - we forget this happened. Doing shit like this? Is so fucking far off your charts it ain't even a thought, but this time's on me. I'll let it pass. My prime ass on the line. For you."

 

"Your ass, huh?"

 

"My ass," Flag repeats. "My job to make sure any papers are in order. My boys I'm keeping quiet. For you."

 

Floyd laughs. "Wow, alright. You know something, Flag? Give yourself a pat on the back; you're a real American hero, brother. Soak it in. I'm honored. Really."

 

Flag rolls his eyes. When he has, he levels Floyd with a gaze hard, again. "Seriously, man, you wanna know how far you revoked all your privileges just now? You can shove 'em so far up your ass it reaches your esophagus, still wouldn't be far enough back. But I can make that go away."

 

"Yeah? Just like that? You gonna white magic your way outta this? Sorry I ain't got much means to pay for your services."

 

"Don't need to pay me," Flag says. Like a mantra. I'm doing this for you. For you. Floyd twists to keep the intonation from hitting him square in the throat. Fuck that.

 

"Literally? Fuck no, I don't. What do you even want, Flag? Why the fuck you coming here, acting like you're my personal Messiah? You know that don't work around these parts."

 

There is someplace here, in between Flag unlacing, lacing, twisting his palms around each other, stare dead on, that Floyd wants to pull the mask back down over his eyes, feel the very real weight of a loaded gun settle in the center curl of his palm. He wants the dexterity, and the density, of knowing there is something lethal to have, to hold. Not the search, the roam, of Flag's gaze on the contours of his neck, his shoulders. The link of the chains and cuffs.

 

"Let's just say that you got a favor to repay, some day. That's my deal," Flag says. He ceases moving his hands about. Lets them lay flat, upwards, on his knees.

 

And he's fucking tired. Something tugs in his gut, and Floyd doesn't quench the pull. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he's staring at the bolted roof. "'S her birthday," he mutters.

 

Flag's jacket rustles when he moves. Kevlar vest creaks when he rotates his shoulders. "I know," he says.

 

*

 

He doesn't hear a word about it. Five minutes too far across the field, one more borrowed item of - anything, at his hip, ready to pull a trigger, or a switchblade, and there'd been an issued kill on sight order. Flag'd had his hand curled beneath his jacket. Floyd knows the man doesn't like to advertise it to Zoe, but it's there. A hair's breadth from being pulled loose.

 

And now, his new escort detail marches him down the deserted level three corridor, his cell looming, infused cell door yawning on hinge. They seal him in, and, nothing. There's nothing. Nothing new.

 

He gets to keep his heavy bag. It's an old, old Everlast, yellowing through the orange. Patched up here 'n there to keep from spilling grain onto the concrete flooring. He wraps his knuckles with the standard issue cotton strips, fancy Velcro pads at the end, so that there's no taping necessary. He has gotten gloves. As old and as worn through as the bag. He uses them occasionally. Mostly, the wraps will do. When he needs it - boxing, it'll do. Man made.

 

He jabs. Twice. Right, swipe, left. Work with your feet. Jab, left, left, right left. Duck, hook, footwork. There is a brutal grace to it.

 

Sniping requires finesse, is a form of detached violence of which there's no need for hand-to-hand proficiency. He picks apart sniping; the bullet's trajectory versus the wind, versus the barely noticeable jerk in his wrist, natural per the recoil, versus the human element. It is clean, it's neat. He is detached from the target, but never from the machinery. Never from the calculated intent.

 

He jabs. Again. Twice. Right, swipe, left. Work with your feet. Jab, left, right, right left. Duck, hook, block, duck. There is no dance. There's a randomized set of repetitional movements worked into a pattern. Backtrack, block, elbows in. Jab. Duck, swipe. Jab, left right, right left. The bag barely swings, barely creeps an inch beneath the meat of his fists. The bag barely swings, barely creeps an inch beneath the meat of his fists. Floyd leverages his weight onto his left knee, when his favored right starts to creep with an itch that's remnants of a damaged meniscus. He swings. Darts left. Hooks again.

 

There is a mindlessless to boxing. Here. Between three walls of concrete and one where light nestles itself in spears over the bag. A mindlessness to the pent up emotions which are not necessary - not part of the package, of Deadshot. Here, Floyd Lawton leaves bloodied marks on the bag. Floyd Lawton's fists eventually swell up, go hot beneath the wraps which soak up, pink and double the size, when sweat is rolling down to collect in the Velcro, and the wrappings, and in the waistband of his overall.

 

There is a sizeable difference between Floyd Lawton, and Deadshot.

 

And there in between. He is not necessarily a sum of these parts equalling something greater.

 

*

 

It's been three days, from the moment he slumps against the wall, wrappings barely loosened to allow circulation free, until the hatchet for the window in the door shrieks as it's pulled off its hook, and the square of space leaves Floyd looking at Flag, frowning beneath a star and stripes-stitched cap. "Lawton," he says - not void of intention.

 

"Colonel," Floyd replies, because, it's been a while, and there's this mutual respect thing he thinks of honoring since, apparently there was some ounce of non-bullshit, factual truth to what Flag'd said, last time. He has to clear his throat around it, scratchy with non use.

 

Flag doesn't say anything in return. There is no quip. His mouth thins, instead. His eyes dart from Floyd's face, somewhere in the region of his mouth, to where his hands are gathered in his lap. Crusting a little, flaking off with blood. He tries not to move 'em too much. "Lawton," Flag says, again. Floyd stares skywards. 

 

"When's the last time you actually checked this cell? Jesus - who's the PSO for Sector Two?" he snaps, without otherwise deviating from maintaining the firm look, hard and burning, on the side of Floyd's face.

 

"I - Sir," replies a disembodied voice from outside of Floyd's field of vision, clearly not able to answer. "PSO for this sector would be Captain Newlie, Sir," 

 

"Yeah? Well, you tell him to come see me at the gates when we're done here. And tell him that he's fucking fired. C'mon, inmate; we're marching your sorry ass to Med Wing."

 

Flag bares his teeth, lip curling, when the accompanying soldiers at his shoulders step forward to form half a kevlar covered set of elbows between them. Newlie's sub-rank officers, four present, hook the cuffs tightly, but not bruising, in the dropping vee of his hips, rather than twisted behind his back. Flag shakes his head, when the rattle of the chain echoes flatly off the walls. "He ain't that bad. Especially not all banged up. Let's go." He looks, a flash, from beneath the cap, at Floyd.

 

Belle Reve's medical wing is two sectors off, three corridors off of the elevator down one level, eastbound. There's a sizable part of his conscious brain activity cataloguing these things. Keeping track, mapping territory, neighborhood, area - until there's a familiarity there, like smoothing a thumb down the inside of one's wrist, feeling with intent what you know to be there.

 

The medical examiner is the one who'd told him - nine months ago, and also three months ago, that based on a haze of stats and compilations of blood tests and EKGs, for a dead man walking, he's very healthy, and his physique is very well maintained.

 

The same man cleans the cuts across his knuckles now, depth touching on grazing bone, had it not been for the cushion of the wraps, and lathers antiseptic on, before wrapping his hands again, this time with the pale beige bandages of medical facilities. He seems unfazed by Floyd's presence, and only talks to Flag, as the highest ranking soldier in the room.

 

"We're done here, Colonel," the doctor says, primly, and tears the final piece of tape for the bandages to be secured. Can't have needles, after all. Flag nods. He turns to the doctor, having been poised in Floyd's direction, leaned slouching into the far wall.

 

"I'd like the room, doc?" Flag phrases it like a question, but there's an undercurrent of an order there. He orders one guard detail to remain just outside, the rest to wait down the wind of the corridor.

 

Flag clicks the door handle shut himself, and leans against it. His eyes rake over Floyd. Heavy weight settling on his lungs, up over his throat. Shoulders. Chin. Until there's nothing left. He stares back. There's a dull throb in his knuckles. Post-fight. Post-epinephrine high, way past.

 

"Man, you look shot to hell," Flag says.

 

"Some'd say I look dead shot," Floyd replies. He allows for it to peter out, doesn't want for it to be picked up and retaliated on.

 

Flag snorts. "Fuck you and your meta, Lawton."

 

"Right. You just come here to chit chat, Flag? You miss me?"

 

"The day I do, I'll walk into the muzzle of whatever gun you prefer; I'll personally order you to shoot me."

 

Floyd flexes his fingers slowly. Feels for where the skin gives way for raw flesh, feels carefully the tendon sheaths snap over finger bones. "I don't do euthanasia, 'less the credit's really fucking nice. If that's what you're thinking of calling in for a favor."

 

Flag replies slowly. Thick as molasses, the silence, before he enunciates, "Don't worry. I won't."

 

Floyd looks up. Flag wears a standard issue flak jacket pulled up to above the elbows. The cap is bunched in his right palm, secured in the crook of his left arm. He's come straight from a run; dried sweat at his hairline, t-shirt beneath the jacket stiff. It's spottable in the way the muscles give way for exhaustion and lactic acid when he shifts from one leg to another.

 

"What're you doing here, Flag?" he asks.

 

Flag's picking words out of a list, carefully speaking. "I'm thinking of requesting you for a job. Was on my way to get the paperwork up the chain of command here. I was, at least, when the heli dropped me off."

 

"You was? And now you're - what - exactly?"

 

"I'm still thinkin' about it."

 

"Nah, man. That's not what you're saying. You're thinking I'm losing it here. That's it, with the doc, with the shit last week - you're reconsidering 'cause you think I'm about to crack down here? Like this is all I got."

 

Flag starts, fluid movement, one shoulder pushing off of the door. "Is it?" he says. There's a low, sharp sting to the words, and he's inching forward. Floyd is spread legged and fucking steady, halfway off of the exam table, paper sheaf hissing beneath him. The ache is a dull throb now, nothing more than a thought easily overlooked.

 

Flag stops, a few inches from where he'd be standing in the crescent of Floyd's splayed legs. There's a restless twitch in his fingers. Floyd leans on the balls of his feet, minutely, lightly. There is movement within the reach of his arm's width. There is a power to gather in the hurtling movement possible to execute from here and forward. There's an element of calculation to this. One guard detail posted outside. Too slow - always, to be able to interfere, before there is, to an extent, fatal damage already done.

 

"Is it?" he repeats. He's looming over Floyd, the span of his shoulders up close making his silhouette something overshadowing. There's a course of a thrill suddenly piercing, needling, through his gut.

 

"There's a thirty second interval between me using whatever tools at hand here to gut you, and your men out there hearing the thunk of your beat ass hitting the floor. So you better watch where you step right here, _Colonel_."

 

Flag slowly reaches across his own chest, to pull the jacket aside, tug the strap of his shoulder holster forward. "Or, you could do what you do best," he says, low and rough, still staring Floyd down, tugging, at calm interval, on the leather strap. Special issued .45 M1911 is poking out, black polish sheen, from Flag's side. "I've seen the tapes enough to know you wouldn't break a sweat, getting this off me. You ain't cuffed by chain, we're alone - what's to stop you?"

 

Floyd has to curl his fists harshly enough to make newly grafted skin break, a breaking of pain, to keep from losing his breath. Flag's looking at him, eyes wide, dark, and if he's listening over the coarse noise his own breathing through his nostrils - Flag's heart is a beat too quick, betrayal just around the corner. He feels the tug and churn in his gut again, low, too low, too harsh.

 

He leans back onto the exam table again, and sighs, air deep in his lungs. "The job?" he asks.

 

Flag's gone before you'd be able to touch the illusion of his body having ever been in such close proximity. "You'll know," he says, and turns from Floyd, exposing the vulnerable width of his back. His fingers come up. He speaks into the Bluetooth shell.

 

*

 

Flag's men relieves his Belle Reve watchdogs at the heli pad, transitioning at the edge of where the white paint is looping out toward the squall of the sea. Floyd squints through the spit of salt. Flag motions for them to move in from the belly of the chopper. His shades are pulled up to rest on the top of his skull, the sun having been obscured in favor of a blanket of humid grey cloud. Floyd's in his suit, but weaponless, urged into the heli, ducking for the whip of the rotor blades.

 

"'S a one man job," Flag says, the moment the door slides shut behind him and two strapped in SWAT soldiers. "Don't overtax the freedom I'm givin' you here. You get the hit done, you return to rendezvous."

 

Floyd quirks an eyebrow. "Errand boy, you gotta let go of your hubris right now. You're not the one giving me shit, except when you're giving me - shit."

 

Flag releases a terse breath between his teeth. "Fuckin' comedian we've got here," he snaps, "You could really make it, Lawton."

 

Floyd shrugs. "It's easier bein' mean to your ugly mug than to the actual boss lady, so this arrangement's just fine."

 

They lift over the gulf. The helicopter churns with the wind and with the rattle of its rotors, otherwise it remains quiet. The pilot relays over the intercom even Floyd's allowed to tap into, that they're making for Star City.

 

Floyd turns to Flag, and is about to open his mouth, when Flag beats him to the punch. "Mission, _inmate_ ," he intones, "We've managed to uncover a potential leak in the A.R.G.U.S main room. He reports to one of the main gangs operating out of The Triangle. They're small fry on the larger map, but a leak's a leak."

 

"The Triangle, huh," Floyd says. Drums his fingers on his knees.

 

"Problem?" Flag says.

 

Floyd looks up at him. "No Sir, no problem," he says.

 

*

 

He folds in on himself, seated askew on the wet tip of a rooftop. Bouts of California rain have drenched the surroundings, and another's on its way, if Floyd could ever taste the thick, wet air. He's got one of the organization's finest work pieces - a modified Remington with a masked laser sighting, capable of making it at 2,200 yards - set on a tripod, zeroed downwards on the ledge ahead.

 

Flag breathes quietly in the shell curling around his ear. "Target's moving at 3000 yards, coming north west. Should, if we're right, come into range to your three o'clock."

 

"You got people everywhere, Colonel?" Floyd mutters, " _Three kay_ yards's a lot of distance to keep track of. And we're central."

 

"You worry about making your shot, inmate, and we're all good."

 

"I'm not worried about my shot, soldier. How'd that work out for my rep? I'm worried you're assuming things about the coming situation, feedin' me intel that's gonna be all wrong. Might need to make this into a bigger deal than it has to be if so's the case, thanks to y'all relying on the human notion of habitual movement."

 

Flag's voice is unfazed, unchanged, as he replies, "Twenty one hundred now, Lawton. Quit talkin' outta your ass and concentrate."

 

Floyd doesn't reply. He waits. Flag counts down in his ear, methodically. In charge. Nineteen hundred. Fourteen hundred. Switching lane, but not switching roads. Nine hundred yards, Lawton, do you read me?

 

"I read you, soldier; chill. Or we're gonna have some words, you and me. Particularly about you draggin' my ass out here to rip me about a job I could do in my sleep, if I hadn't had to have you talkin' my damn ear off."

 

Flag does quiet, a static buzz over the line growing in his ear, instead. He finds the disconnect in there. In the quiet. The overlapping, and the separation, of Floyd Lawton, and Deadshot. Of the human caliber, and the disjoint of the marksman finesse. He listens. He sees. Commits the particular corners he's waiting at to memory. This is it: the density versus the whip of the wind, versus the humidity and the racing of the cars, speeding towards them.

 

"Clockin' fifty yards, Lawton. I hope you chose the right corner; they're comin' 'round the back."

 

Floyd had chosen the left. "I like a challenge, Colonel," he says. He can hear the cars. Two. Not an official escort. Either this ain't that kind of courtesy visit, or he's not one of them big guys.

 

There's nothing in him that cares. He rights the rifle, swings the tripod minutely, so that it's resting, tilting left. He tips his head slightly. The laser isn't a pinpoint he needs, but he uses it like a disconnected aid, whereas the mechanical eye - not currently part of his uniform, that's a signum nobody likes to flash past on the street, inmate - had been a more intimate auxiliary. It'll do.

 

It's not a difficult shot.

 

It's not a difficult target.

 

He makes the shot.

 

*

 

Since workplace violence breeds a pavlovian response, almost always positive, Floyd expects it when Flag steps inside his cell, and puts a hand with a key loosely grasped in it, on the link between Floyd's cuffs.

 

"Pick a date, and I'll take you to see her," Flag says. The weight of his palm pulls at the cuffs. It makes the metal dig into his wrists. Floyd wants to release a part breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Probably never would realize there is a part of him him that always holds its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, involving his baby girl, had he not had the fortune of stepping in on her and Michelle, all those years ago.

 

"What day's it even now?" he asks, an actual question underlining the bizarre sense of not knowing.

 

"Wednesday. Twelfth. Four thirty three past midday." Flag checks his wristwatch to be sure.

 

"Huh," Floyd says. "Well, I'll let you know. You have my number, soldier. Expectin' your answer when I call."

 

Flag snorts. He moves his hand, motions for Floyd to step in close. He does. Flag's got his shirt plastered to his figure, grey worn cotton, faded Navy SEAL logo outlined on his chest. He grasps Floyd's wrist, the left one, lightly, like there's a fuse in the protruding thin skin over bone that's waiting to detonate.

 

*

 

Floyd eyes the infused civilian sedan parked just outside of Belle Reve's main gates, facing northeast, rather than south, toward the sea. Flag is standing, one leg folded and hitched up to rest on the top curve of the back wheel, towards the back of the vehicle. There's a ringlet of smoke curling up from the butt of a cigarette, thrown askew just by his grounded foot.

 

"What's this?" Floyd asks, critically. His escort tugs at his chain from behind, signaling stop. He obediently complies.

 

Flag shrugs. "You think you're gonna get the sweet deal every time, inmate? Those helis are expensive to operate, you know."

 

"So, the boss lady's run out of funds?" Floyd quirks an eyebrow, "That it?"

 

Flag frowns. "Just get in the car, Lawton. If Waller's gonna put her money anywhere, it ain't gonna be in your pocket funds. We're drivin'. If you've got a problem, I can just call this little road trip off."

 

Floyd raises his hands, white figurative flag waving. "No complaints, Colonel."

 

"Good," Flag says, and motions for shotgun. He turns toward the two man security detail at Floyd's shoulders. "Search him again. Once inside, cuffs'll do."

 

"Sir," the man on Floyd's left complies.

 

Floyd's left with only tight cuffs and extra straps for double the security of everyone in the vehicle, according to the manual Flag seems to know like the back of his own hand, the way he recites a couple of lines copied out of a handbook with dull vowels. The guard is posted back, secure behind bulletproof glass and a steel wall. "If you take out the driver, you don't have immediate access to the rest of the crew," Flag says. He revs the engine unnecessarily.

 

"And they don't have access to me, either. While I'm kickin' your cooling ass out of the seat'n taking control of this joint."

 

Flag's the kind of driver who searches for his clutch, not immediately certain of where he can control the switch between gears. The engine whines beneath his foot. He looks up at Floyd after he's turned out on the highway, eyebrow hitched up on his face. "Sounds like you've got a sound escape plan, inmate. Anybody else'd be worried by now."

 

"But not you," Floyd concludes.

 

It's the first time he sees Flag slip him some teeth in a smile. "Not me," he replies.

 

*

 

Zoe runs - for the first time since she was four, and he'd been gone for three quarters of the year, camping out in safe houses or working - and drops into the cavity made in the crescent of his arms to fit her there. Floyd pulls her against his chest. "Dad," she says, muffled, into his collar.

 

"Heya, baby," he murmurs into her hair. She smells of the Bath and Body Works shampoo Michelle'd used for all of those years; eucalyptus and spearmint. "How's daddy's favorite?"

 

Zoe tugs away from him, her smile a bit crooked. "I'm fine," she tells him with the raw honesty of children.

 

Floyd nods. "That's good," he says, "That's real good. How was your birthday?"

 

Zoe shrugs. "It was fine," she says. "I'm sad you couldn't stay." She looks up at him, almost shy, like she's omitting something to him that she shouldn't. Floyd closes his eyes, briefly, counts to five. This time, her voice is this, twelve and clever and a little rough, like she's been talking too much all at once. He opens them. Smiles, a little forced cheer, genuinely soft, he thinks. "Me too, baby. I'll make it up to you today, though. That okay?"

 

She nods. "That's okay," she allows.

 

*

 

Floyd drags goodbye for as long as he possibly can. There is a test in there for Flag, who is silhouetted in the ceasing of daylight in the corridor, falling out into the hallway. Zoe doesn't comment, and Flag doesn't make a move to interrupt for the extra twenty minutes Floyd piles on. It's not until Floyd looks up, actively searching Flag's gaze out, that the Colonel moves to its intention.

 

"Floyd," he says, low, "'S time to hit the road."

 

Floyd's mind supplies the explanation as wanting to keep it familial in front of his daughter. There is something odd there, a clear separation of situations and people versus the reality of outdoors.

 

He nods. He looks at Zoe. "That's Rick," he says, motioning for Flag, "And I know you know, baby girl, but - "

 

"But you hafta go with him," Zoe supplies. She nods, sagely. "I know, dad."

 

Floyd smiles. "And that's why you're so amazing, baby. That's how I know you're gonna do great things, some day."

 

She smiles, small and brittle. He doesn't mention it. There is no way he's going to make it worse. He just hugs her close, careful with the curve of her skull, cradling it in the span of his palm. She puffs shallow, warm breaths against his chest, and he breathes in the scent of soap mixed with spearmint herb once more, long pulls of air, before he has to let her go.

 

"I won't be long," he promises. She holds her pinky out without saying anything. He crooks his in hers. "Promise," he repeats, out loud.

 

"Good," Zoe says. She's not smiling anymore, but there is a light spread in her face when he says so. It'll do, Floyd figures.

 

To his credit, Flag only motions for him to go outside, where there's their guard detail of two, and a supplied team of three officers from Star City PD. Flag stops, just inside the door. He nods to the escort. "I'll be two secs," he says, and turns around again, disappearing inside of the apartment. Floyd frowns. The door is slightly askew, and he can't hear what's happening, but Flag is speaking low and measured, the clip to his white kid from Iowa-lilt softening. Zoe's replies are unsure, at first, but grows in turn.

 

Flag emerges from inside of the apartment. "Prepare to move," he says, "I'll escort the asset out."

 

"Sir," they chorus, and turn toward the staircase.

 

Floyd waits until the last of the officers have shuffled downstairs, heavy padding and gear hindering quiet descent. He turns to Flag. "What'd you say to her?" he asks, low, still aware of the fact that they're - too close.

 

Flag isn't looking at him. "I told her that we're keepin' you whole and safe. That she and her mom can let me know when's a good time for you to visit. I can schedule."

 

"You'll schedule? For what?" Floyd demands.

 

"Visits," Flag replies. He's still turned, half away. "What else?"

 

Floyd thinks of the clear separation between Floyd Lawton, and Deadshot. Of Flag telling him, Floyd, it's time to go. Skip town. He snorts, but he ain't laughing. "So you people can schedule the mob fights and the life threatening save the world bouts? So that, a week before, you'll still have plenty of time to let her know that her daddy ain't gonna make it? That's what it is, right - one hit, one visit?"

 

This time, Flag does twist around. "Don't act like we're jury and executioner to your innocent fuckin' cause, _Lawton_. I ain't the _fuckin'_ reason you're in this shit. I'm just tryin' to ease it for the sake of your daughter in there. So skip the fuckin' _lecture_." His lip's curled, and Floyd can see the grit of his teeth, hard. He backs away, and knows, that Flag will follow.

 

"What if I wanna quit?" he asks. He hits the wall. Flag's still advancing. "What then? Y'all can't force me out of my cell. That bureaucrat of yours know it. America sure as fuck would rather keep me in there, so what's it you're gonna do then?"

 

Flag stops just short of pressing them together into one, hard line. Floyd breathes, quietly, deliberately, and looks up at Flag. Flag's jaw is still working, but he's reigned himself in; he's matching Floyd's quiet calculation. "Waller'll revoke your privileges," he murmurs, "You'll rot in there. Belle Reve don't work like any other penitentiary, you know that. No visitors allowed on ground. The only time you'll see her is if the state'd ever approve a potential try of your sentence, if she'd wanna come. Or, in the case of your dying, she'd maybe get the chance to say goodbye."

 

Floyd knots his fists. Clench, unclench. The new, raw skin on his knuckles stretches. There's a stutter in Flag's breath. Barely, barely there. But there, nonetheless. A change in the velocity of the bullet's trajectory through the speed of the wind.

 

"You called me Floyd," he says, "In front of my daughter."

 

"Your name's Floyd," Flag replies.

 

"Only my friends get to call me Floyd. Especially, in front of my daughter."

 

"'F I recall it correct, you were the first one to call us friends, in front of your daughter." Flag smiles, slightly, but there's an indecision in how cruel it should be.

 

"That you did call me Floyd in front of her points to the fact that you're willing to play along with that. There's nothin' in it for you, so what's your end game here, soldier?"

 

"You think there's an end game here?"

 

Floyd leans his head agains the concrete wall. His fingers are loose. Body angled hard into the wall, from here it's easy to push forward; gather enough force beneath him to do some sizable damage, even taking into consideration the fact that Flag is hard and heavy, probably, soldier's programming, prepared for anything. But even so - there is something else. "There always is," Floyd says. "Y'all motherfuckers always have three outcomes planned ahead of the first."

 

The static of Flag's crackling mic disrupts the tension. "Everything okay, Sir?" asks someone across the line.

 

"Everything alright," Flag grunts, finger pressed to the communication button. "Remain on standby, soldier."

 

"Copy that, Sir."

 

Flag releases the headset. Allows his hand to drop again. Floyd follows the movement, stays at where Flag allows for his palm to become suspended, circling in the space above their close hips. He looks up again. The air is thick, despite the winter chill creeping through the house foundation. Cut to be noticeable. When Flag speaks again, Floyd can't be sure if he's breathing the words, or if his breathing is so noticeable the words are drowned out. "I own you, Lawton; I don't need an end game."

 

In hindsight, there's a lot more of Floyd Lawton to it than it is Deadshot. There's a precision in everything from the planning to the stakeout to the execution to where Deadshot's essence lays. Floyd Lawton is the incalculable differential, the capricious variable. He surges forward, stepping into where Flag curls his palm to fit on Floyd's hip. Grinds into Flag, where Flag's already hard, warm against the fit in the crease of Floyd's thigh and pelvis.

 

Flag grunts, in surprise, and grips on both of Floyd's hips, fingers bunching in his pants beneath his jacket. Floyd finds the absolute edge of his jaw, and worries his teeth over the skin, almost hard enough to leave a mark behind. Flag's fingers are bruising, his breathing stuttering, but he doesn't let up. His cock jumps against Floyd's thigh. "You own me, huh, Flag?" he mutters, and buries his nails in the patch of skin where Flag's shirt is riding up, showing vulnerable skin. "You own me? That what's getting you so worked up?"

 

Flag bucks, harshly, against him. His teeth snap. "Fuck you," he says.

 

Floyd laughs, mirthless. "Yeah, I guessed," he says.

 

Flag pulls away, pushes as suddenly has he'd been trapped in it. There's color high on his throat. He rights his shirt, his jacket. Floyd leans back into the wall.

 

"Two can play a game, Flag," Floyd mirrors at him, from far back.

 

Flag's lips are slanted downwards now, frown in place, as he tightens the cuffs on Floyd's wrists. The chill of the metal bites. Flag's breathing is short, warmth curling on the back of his neck. Floyd's trying to reign himself in. Pierce the niggling squall of want that's growing in his stomach. They stay like that for a few added seconds. Lets the deserted hallway swallow the silence.

 

Flag presses a palm into Floyd's lower side. Urges him to go, eventually. "Let's go, inmate," Flag murmurs, "Any more wasted time, the men'd think the situation's compromised."

 

"Isn't it?" Floyd replies, but starts towards the curve of the staircase. 

 

"Like you said, two can play a game," Flag says.

 

*

 


End file.
